How well do we
understand salvation history?
Even today, how
easy is it for us to understand what Paul, in his Letter to the Romans, calls the revelation of the mystery kept secret
for long ages? Certainly, during the
reign of King David as described in the Second Book of Samuel, David doesn’t
entirely understand his own role in salvation history. Recognizing that he, as king, lives in a house of cedar, he is
embarrassed that the ark of God dwells in
a tent! But the house David wants to
build for God will be fixed in time and place; it will be a tangible and temporary
construction. So God sends the prophet
Nathan to set David straight: I will fix a place for my people Israel,
and will make the kingdom of David’s heir firm. God isn’t promising David a covenant
according to the terms of men, as Psalm 89 explains; it is a covenant according
to God’s own terms: Forever I will maintain my kindness toward him, and my covenant with
him stands firm. It is God who calls the shots, God who is responsible for
salvation history, God who has no human limitations, God who establishes the
kingdom of heaven, our opportunity for perfect union with him after death… We have but to allow it to happen through us.
In Luke’s Gospel,
Mary is pretty much in the same boat.
Visited by the angel Gabriel, told that she will conceive in her womb and
bear a son who will be great and will
be called the Son of the Most High, Mary simply says, May it be done to me according to your word. She, too, must allow salvation history to
happen through her; she says yes to a radical shift in her identity and thus in
the identity of all humankind. The son
she will bear, Jesus, is the fulfillment of God’s promise to the house of David
– of his kingdom there will be no end –
but he is much more than that: God’s plan is more than we could ever conceive
of, as God himself is born into our world through the womb of Mary.
In the final
analysis, the revelation of the mystery
kept secret for long ages is nothing but the Incarnation of Jesus – the salvation
God has promised to all humankind, for all eternity. We have but to allow it to happen through us!
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
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